Hate won’t win: a lesson from the Holocaust

South Carolina received a shocking reminder about the effects of hatred and bigotry on June 17. The massacre at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church brought fear into the hearts of all South Carolinians. How could this have happened in our beautiful state, in our historic city of Charleston? The answers evolved over the next few days as more was learned about the hatred in the heart of the shooter.

But we should not be surprised by this horrific event. This is what hatred can do to seemingly normal, average people. People who get caught in the rhetoric of fear, hatred and bigotry can be led down the path to destroy.

The world clearly saw this in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The signs were there, as they were here in South Carolina: an economic downturn, a sense of frustration and marginalization, and the hate speak that we’ve heard on the Internet and in our media. Hitler’s radio speeches whipped up the average German to feel empowered to hate, to lash out at anyone, to kill. Thus, more than 6 million Jews and millions (not hundreds, not thousands, but millions) of others were murdered.

That devastating and horrific event, encased within a World War, could and did shock the most seasoned soldier and the highest commanding officer. Consider the words of Gen. Dwight D Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in the European theatre, in a letter to Chief of Staff George Marshall following his visit to the Ohrdruf slave labor camp, April 15, 1945:

“The things I saw beggar description …. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty, and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick …. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”

We need to be mindful of what we hear, what our children hear and what this teaches us all. The painful lessons of the Holocaust should be clear: Hatred, bigotry, isolation and fear lead to despicable actions. We must embrace tolerance and teach our children about the joy of differences in our physical appearances, in our ethnicity, in our religions and in our politics.

We live in the best country in the world, founded by patriots who had an uncanny ability to look into the future. Our forefathers spoke and wrote about the importance of separation of church and state, and the rights of liberty and freedom for all. We live in a beautiful state that has matured to understand what symbols of hatred or fear mean. We need to wake up to what is happening around us. We need to be an upstander, not a bystander; we need to care. In the beautiful words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, we should take heed:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.

“The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.

“The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.

“And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

After the Mother Emanuel tragedy, we watched in amazement as the families of the nine innocent victims taught us courage and dignity, through their forgiveness of the killer. From that tragedy arose a movement, “Hate Won’t Win,” started by one of the granddaughters of slain Pastor Daniel Simmons.

In September, I had the honor of speaking at Dutch Fork Middle School about the Holocaust experience of my parents, Jadzia and Ben Stern. The assembly of more than 500 middle schoolers was the springboard for the “Hate Won’t Win” program, and at the conclusion of my talk, the entire gym erupted with a spontaneous synchronized chanting, “hate won’t win … hate won’t win,” which brought tears to my eyes. Although more than 70 years later, perhaps the lessons of the Holocaust will not be forgotten, and hate won’t win.

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 9:25 AM with the headline "Hate won’t win: a lesson from the Holocaust."